As you saw, Mayor Simeon Lopez and his family declined an initial interview, and as they left the court their physical reaction suggested that they were disappointed after attending every day since Jex was at Magistrate's Court, all the way through the Supreme Court trial.
Today, Lopez was much more responsive, and he gave the media a revealing sit-down interview where he explained the entire situation from his and his family's perspective. Here's what he had to say about the case, how it played out, and about their reaction to the verdict:
Simeon Lopez, Mayor - Belmopan City
"I tried to be as normal. I try to take it as manly as I could. My wife sort of broke down after the verdict and so my emotion did come up a little bit, so I escorted her out of the courtroom along with my daughter. That was the only emotion I had because of how my wife reacted to the verdict. Besides that I try to be strong in support of the family."
"Aubrey was the last of child; he was the baby of the family. He has a widow now and a young son of 12 years old who is preparing to his primary school exam and hopefully go to high school in August/September of this year. Since he lives in Belmopan, I am like the father figure to him. He is a very nice, courteous and respectful little guy."
"Besides that I have to say that here and there it did stir up a little emotion and I try to put pieces together. Sometime they didn't make sense, but I try to see what I could make out of what was being said from the stand."
"I still have no ill feelings towards him. He is a young man, I would only hope that he look back now, think of what happen, if he did it or didn't do it and try to reform his life and try to be a meaningful person within our society. That would be the best thing for him to do and not go back to a life... (I don't want to say to a life of crime, because I don't know that he committed any crime) but choose friends carefully and try to do service to the community."
"Aubrey is dead, we can't get him back - we will never get him back. But with the opening of the trial, it did open some scars again."
"If I believe that not take its course here physically, I know that it be served someday. Justice will be served someday, not by me, not by my family but by a higher power. My family and I only concern was to get the truth and the whole truth. As far as we now know, we would never know who killed Aubrey and why - that either buried with somebody who buried with somebody who is still alive. I don't know who all are alive still out of that group. I don't know how many are dead."
As we told you, Jex's defence was that when the vehicle passed him on Central American Boulevard, long after Aubrey Lopez was shot and dumped on the street, he got a ride, and when police chased it down, he was there innocently. That's when the entire situation snowballed out of hand where he was fingered as a murderer, in a crime that he says he didn't commit.
The prosecution's main witness, who gave written evidence which was admitted in the trial, told the court that he was afraid to testify against Jex because his life was repeatedly threatened by persons, one of whom shot at him to put teeth to the threat. That written statement from that main witness was tendered as evidence in the case for the jury to carefully consider before the delivered their verdict.
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